COLLEGEVILLE — Gov. Tom Corbett took the opportunity during a visit to Montgomery County Wednesday to address the ongoing same-sex marriage controversy.

During an impromptu press conference at the opening of Dow Chemical’s new research and development facility in Collegeville, Corbett specifically addressed the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s announcement Tuesday that it is suing Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes for issuing same-sex marriage licenses in violation of Pennsylvania law.

The “Writ of Mandamus” filled by the state in Commonwealth Court directs Hanes to stop issuing the licenses.

“I think the idea of the Mandamus is to direct the clerk to follow the law of Pennsylvania and that law has not been changed. It is still in existence, and every time he issues a license to a couple of the same sex, he is violating the law,” Corbett said.

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The 1996 law defines marriage as a civil contract in which a man and a woman take each other as husband and wife.

“If you want to be the person who determines whether something is constitutional or not, you have to run for the bench, get on the bench — get to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania or get placed on the federal court,” the governor added. “That decision is solely in the judicial branch of government. You can have recommendations, you can have opinions, but you have to follow the law. We don’t get to change it. The Legislature gets to change it. That law hasn’t been changed, and that law is the result of the General Assembly elected by the people of Pennsylvania.”

Montgomery County officials overstepped their authority in granting more than 30 licenses in the past week, according to the governor.

Corbett said there is no time line established for the legal process, given the recent filing of the Writ of Mandamus. He said the decision lies with the courts, not individual county clerks.

Also Wednesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane fired back at Corbett for his criticism of her decision to not defend the state’s marriage law in a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

According to an Associated Press report, Kane said it is not the governor’s job to tell the attorney general what the office’s duties and obligations are. The statement came in a letter dated Tuesday, one in an exchange between the newly elected Democratic attorney general and the Republican governor, who formerly served as the attorney general.

In the letter, Kane’s chief of staff calls the state’s marriage law “one of the last discriminatory statutes’ in Pennsylvania and predicts it’ll be struck down.

Pennsylvania’s 17-year-old law defines marriage as a civil contract in which a man and a woman take each other as husband and wife.